I'll never do that again

[Ray Z]

Went to Wallyworld yesterday afternoon [ Black Friday ] just to see if I could get my butt kicked by some little old lady with a shopping cart. As we [my wife and I] went past the sporting goods counter I asked if they had a 870 youth. Need it for my grandson for Christmas. The lady said they did and it was $309 less 20%. That's over $100 less than I could get my son with an FFL to get it for me at his cost. Needless to say, I jumped on it like white on rice. Only problem was that they do all their 4473's on line. One terminal, one at a time. You fill out the form on line and they send it in on line. There was one lady in front of my waiting for TICs to get back to  them. An 1 hour and 45 minutes later she got cleared. After I filled out the form on the computer I had a 2 hour wait for mine to get back. Earlier I had promised my wife that I'd take her to the Texas Road House. That was before I bought that shotgun. I caught flack for the next 3 hours over that. My only saving grace was that the Road House was open 'til 11pm. Never again, NEVER AGAIN.

[musicman]

Years ago (12, I think) I had cash in hand to buy a Marlin .22 from WalMart on Old Fort in Murfreesboro. I paid for my BG check and waited. And waited. And waited. Two hours later, no one had processed it yet, and I was too inexperienced (my second gun purchase) to even know what to ask or do... Iwas a noob at their mercy.

I eventually gave up considered it a $10 loss, drove all the way up to Bass Pro at Opry and walked out with a Remington 597 within 10 minutes of walking in the door. It turned out to be the worst gun I've owned so far, but at least Bass Pro processed it properly and quickly!

[Garufa]

I read something yesterday about Black Friday being not only a day for hysterical women to spend as much money as possible to save a buck but that NICS and TICS is absolutely slammed....biggest gun buying day of the year.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Garufa

[dralarms]

Bought a gun (don't remember what) from Walmart, went through background check and then waited 30 min for a csm to "carry" my gun to the front door. On the way I asked why, she said company policy, "don't want anyone loading a gun in the store", I told her that gun was safe, it was protected by the 2 I had on me that were fully loaded. Should have seen the look on her face, I thought she was going to crap a brick.

[Oh Shoot]

... That's over $100 less than I could get my son with an FFL to get it for me at his cost.... An 1 hour and 45 minutes later she got cleared...

 

Well, though I value my time even as a retired geezer,  that's sorta like being paid $57 an hour to hang around, eh?

 

- OS

Edited November 30, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[UncleJak]

Slimline the times I bought drom academy and Dicks. Took over an hour each time. I go to my local guy and I am 15 minutes and done. 10 of that is be chewing the fat with the owner.

[Ray Z]

Years ago (12, I think) I had cash in hand to buy a Marlin .22 from WalMart on Old Fort in Murfreesboro. I paid for my BG check and waited. And waited. And waited. Two hours later, no one had processed it yet, and I was too inexperienced (my second gun purchase) to even know what to ask or do... Iwas a noob at their mercy.

I eventually gave up considered it a $10 loss, drove all the way up to Bass Pro at Opry and walked out with a Remington 597 within 10 minutes of walking in the door. It turned out to be the worst gun I've owned so far, but at least Bass Pro processed it properly and quickly!

I think the only fault I can give to Wallyworld is that they only have one terminal to process gun sales. The people there were very polite.

[Steelharp]

What you experienced was a Black Friday issue. We couldn't get through using our computer, and we don't have the (REQUIRED by all FFL's to have by 1 Jan) customer terminal going yet. I had to call them in over the phone. The gal at TICS was very polite and understanding, and told me their system kept crashing because of the overload.

 

It wasn't a Wally problem.

[analog_kidd]

I have bought two guns at two different times this month. In both cases, it took me longer to fill out the form than it did to do the TICS check. In the past, they have always taken 20-30 minutes. Both of these recent times were under 5 minutes. 

[BigK]

I was in Outpost Armory on Friday looking around and killing time. I couldn't believe the number of people encircling the checkout stand waiting on their background checks to go through. There must have been 20 people or more of them and they were all clogging up the aisles. That made it hard to get around and look at stuff. I did manage to score some .22 and Bullseye, so I'm not whining.

[Lumber_Jack]

I've heard of people having this problem before.  Ive never personally bought a gun on Black Friday, but my wife bought me one fro a Christmas present a few years back.  She didn't have to wait any longer than a normal purchase.  I don't know what lends to this issue, seems to vary widely

[Steelharp]

I've heard of people having this problem before.  Ive never personally bought a gun on Black Friday, but my wife bought me one fro a Christmas present a few years back.  She didn't have to wait any longer than a normal purchase.  I don't know what lends to this issue, seems to vary widely

What lends to the issue is there are only 5 people that do the TICS for the entire state. Average daily number of background checks is 1600. Black Friday was WAY above average.

[Metalhead]

Yeah TICS was pretty slammed on Friday/Saturday. It wasn't an isolated issue to that one Walmart.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Metalhead

[Ray Z]

What lends to the issue is there are only 5 people that do the TICS for the entire state. Average daily number of background checks is 1600. Black Friday was WAY above average.

Maybe it's time to either get another employee or two or give it back to uncle sam